Vice Versa: Big Brands Lining Up For One Creator’s Attention

Most often when we think about giant name brand companies on social media, we see them as untouchable, unreachable, and impossible to get noticed by. All over the internet we see people creating content in the hopes of being seen by their favorite music artist, favorite clothing brand, favorite sports team. It's a pretty rare occurrence that we see the opposite; where these iconic companies strive for an interaction with one individual. 

In recent weeks though, one viral TikToker has managed to capture the attention of huge corporations, and now has them lining up for a collaboration. Emily Zugay (@emilyzugay on TikTok) is a graphic designer who has blown up for a series of satirical videos in which she takes well-known, recognizable brands, criticises their logo, and “redesigns” it for them. The final product of these logos are intentionally bad designs; funky colors, warped text, and low quality images. It's the total opposite of what any major business would want to represent their company… 

Except that now Emily Zugay has some of the largest corporations and music artists lined up to get one. There are comments from Adobe, The Washington Post, NASCAR, McDonalds, Tampax, Tinder, The Jonas Brothers, and even TikTok itself! Several of the brands have taken her designs and made them their profile picture for their TikTok accounts. The Detroit Lions football team even went so far as to print Zugay’s design on a t-shirt for merchandise. 

Overall, this hilarious series of designs and videos that Zugay has created provides an interesting concept to break down. Zugay is pulling millions of views and likes on each of these videos so it’s no wonder that these huge brands are wanting to get in on the trend. But again, it's not often that we as individuals are able to get brands in the comments of our work asking us to make them a new logo. The trend actually says a lot for those of us who may tend to see these brands as untouchable. It reminds us to not always take our work so seriously, and that breaking the standard is what gets people’s attention; not just creating the coolest design or writing the most impressive tagline.

Be sure to check out Emily Zugay’s videos on TikTok to get the full comedic experience! My favorite of her designs so far you can see in the videos here and here.